PETALING JAYA: Former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor and his stepson Riza Aziz are expected to be charged in court next week for a string of offences related to the alleged embezzlement of 1MDB funds amounting to hundreds of millions of ringgit.
Sources revealed yesterday that the separate probe on Rosmah and her movie producer son Riza was complete and instructions to charge them will be forthcoming in just days.
It will be the first round of charges for 48-year-old Riza following a full-scale probe on the 1MDB was resumed in May.
The CEO of Red Granite Pictures and producer of the movie Wolf of Wall Streets was summoned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for four days early in July and grilled for more than 30 hours by investigators.
Riza is said to be a close friend of the 1MDB probe’s No 1 person-of-interest, financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low.
Riza is alleged to have laundered a huge portion of the billions of ringgit linked to 1MDB and splurged it on luxury properties, vehicles and financing Red Granite Pictures.
The co-founder of the production house was also sued by the US government in a kleptocracy assert recovery suit for allegedly utilising 1MDB funds.
In March, in an out-of-court settlement, Red Granite Pictures made a payment of over RM240 million to the US government.
As for Rosmah, it will be her second time in court to face charges for money laundering and misappropriation of 1MDB funds.
On Oct 4, she was slapped with 17 charges of money laundering and failing to report her income with the Inland Revenue Department. The sum involved about RM14 million.
She claimed trial to all the charges and was allowed bail of RM2 million.
Elsewhere, there were also news reports yesterday that quoted sources as saying Najib, his special aide, two former ministers and a former deputy minister will face charges for power abuse next week.
The reports said that the charges are related to kickbacks received by the five men for the award of government contracts.
However, checks with officials revealed that the MACC is yet to receive instructions from the Attorney-General’s Chambers to execute the charges.
THE SUN DAILY
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